Resources

For many beekeepers the highpoint of the season is exhibiting at the various honey shows that take place around their area. The honey shows consist of a range of different categories, or classes, with something to challenge all levels of beekeeping skill. There are classes·for beekeepers to show their skills at honey presentation in all its forms, in wax presentation, in honey·cookery, crafts, gadgets·and in photography. In fact there are classes for almost any activity related to bees and the hive products.

We encourage every beekeeper to enter a show. The discipline involved in preparing the exhibit teaches a lot about the proper way to present our honey and other hive products. There are many senior beekeepers in your association who are very happy to assist with advice, and handy tips on this site to see what is required for successful exhibiting.

This section of the website aims to provide a single source of information about as many of the different·classes as we can. By making these documents, photos and videos·available here we hope to encourage greater participation in shows.

Books:

BEESWAX production, harvesting, processing and products by Coggshall & Morse has a whole chapter on Shows.

Honey in the Comb by Eugene Killion has a whole chapter on Shows.

1 Note on the United Kingdom pages: Though very helpful, some details on these pages do not apply. For example, they call creamed honey "Set Honey" and they place more emphasis in scoring on taste than we do in the U.S. Here we simply downgrade for the taste of fermentation, scorch, and smoke in honey entries, except in the Black Jar class, which is based solely on taste. In addition, in EAS Shows, judges usually do not light a candle entry as they do in the UK.

2 EAS thanks the Federation of Irish Beekeepers' Associations for the use of this article.